Bard College Catalogue

Bard College Catalogue 2012-13

Philosophy

http://philosophy.bard.edu

Faculty

Overview

The philosophy curriculum is designed to provide every student with a general understanding of the nature and history of philosophical inquiry. Students majoring in philosophy have extensive access to a more specialized curriculum, which can serve as the foundation for graduate study.

Areas of Study

The core of the program consists of history of philosophy courses and such traditional areas of philosophic study as ethics, metaphysics, ­epistemology, logic, the philosophy of language, and aesthetics. In addition, several seminars are offered each year that are devoted to the work of one philosopher, for example, Hegel, Heidegger, James, Kant, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Plato, Sartre, or Wittgenstein.

Requirements

Students moderating in philosophy are expected to have taken three courses in philosophy while in the Lower College. Although no specific courses are required prior to Moderation, students intending to major in philosophy generally take one of the Introduction to Philoso­phy courses, which provide an orientation to philosophic methodologies and common themes of philosophic concern in texts ranging from Platonic dialogues to 21st-century works. A major in philosophy normally involves taking seven courses, of which at least four are in the Upper College.

Juniors must take the writing-intensive Philosophical Research Seminar as well as a 300-level single-author seminar. Students intending to apply to graduate schools in philosophy are strongly encour­aged to take symbolic logic, at least one course in ancient philosophy, at least two courses in modern philosophy (17th through 19th centuries), at least one course in ­20th-century philosophy, and at least one course in ethics or political philosophy. The student determines the topic of his or her Senior Project in consultation with an adviser.

Recent Senior Projects in Philosophy

“Clearing Up the Grounds of Language: A Reading of Wittgenstein”
“The Freedom of Love: The Possibility of Collective Self-Realization through Enduring Forms of Mutual Recognition”
“Nonanthropocentrism and Intrinsic Value: In Search of an Alternative”
“The Philosophical Significance of Adequacy Results for Logical Systems”
“Skillful Listening: Enactivism as a Challenge to Musical Formalism”
“Unstable Foundations: The Role of the Dionysian in Nietzsche’s Construction of Belief”

Courses

Introductory courses are numbered in the 100s. Courses numbered in the 200s, while more specialized in content, are also generally appropriate as first courses in philosophy. Courses numbered in the 300s are more advanced and require previous courses in philosophy and permission of the instructor for admission. Tutorials are also taught: recent ­subjects include Hegel, Heidegger, Hume, Kant’s second and third critiques, and Quine. 

The Philosophy Research Seminar, required for all program majors, centers on a problem in contemporary philosophy. For details, see Philosophy 302.

Introduction to Philosophy from a Multicultural Perspective
Philosophy 104
This course is an introduction to such major themes in the history of philosophy as the nature of reality and our capacity to know it, issues of ethics and justice, and conceptions of how one should live. Readings are drawn from a diverse range of traditions, including Western, Hindu, Buddhist, Chinese, African, Native American, and feminist texts.

Informal Logic, Critical Reasoning
Philosophy 107
This course is designed to strengthen the ability to reason well. Emphasis is on techniques of inductive reasoning, although certain basic elements of “formal” logic and the use of syllogisms in ordinary reasoning are touched upon. Students learn techniques of diagramming and distilling arguments, methods of detecting common fallacies of reasoning, the central features of inductive reasoning, and the relation between argumentation and explanation, as well as progressively more complex examples of reasoning and argument. 

Introduction to Philosophy
Philosophy 108
Western philosophers address questions that most of us find puzzling. Do we have free will? Do we know what the world around us is really like? Does God exist? How should we treat one another? The class examines historical and contemporary texts that address these and other central themes of the philosophical tradition. 

Introduction to Moral and Political Philosophy: Justice
Philosophy 111
What is justice? Who is just? What does a theory of justice try to accomplish? Which institutions might provide justice? Exploring these and other questions, this course provides an introduction to a few key figures of the Western philosophical tradition. Emphasis is on the analysis of primary sources, but the course also aims to build up the students’ familiarity with some of the canonical terms and the tools, methods, and strategies of moral and political philosophy.

Introduction to Practical Reasoning
Philosophy 112
Should I walk, or drive my car? Go to graduate school, or bum around Europe? While such questions often have little significance, they can also arise in morally fraught contexts and have tremendous import. Practical reasoning is the process of reflecting upon and resolving the question of what to do in particular situations. Students examine questions about what kind of process reasoning is, what distinguishes different kinds of reasoning, and what different philosophers say on the subject.

Introduction to Philosophy of Education
Philosophy 113
cross-listed: mbb
What is education? Is it something that occurs only in a school environment? What is worth knowing and studying? This course introduces students to philosophical thinking about education. Course work centers on the close reading of primary texts in the history of ideas, with a focus on how these texts illuminate the meanings and significance of educational practice. Among the writers and texts discussed are Plato, The Republic; John Dewey, Experience and Education; and Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Introduction to Philosophy of Action
Philosophy 114
Placing a leaf on my head seems different from a leaf falling on my head. The first we might call an action, and the second something that merely happens to me. In this course, students examine questions about what distinguishes actions from happenstance, and whether action comes in degrees. They examine four kinds of philosophical views—those that emphasize causal history, the role of the agent, explanation and knowledge of action, and the qualitative aspects of action.

Introduction to Philosophy of the Mind
Philosophy 115
Immaterial spirits, futuristic robots, fake computers with little people inside, Martians who behave like us but have an internal structure very different from ours, brains in vats, and swamp men formed by random aggregation of molecule: this course asks whether these strange characters have thoughts and feelings, and if so, whether they are like us in what they think and feel. The class goes on to investigate central issues in the philosophy of mind, such as the mind-brain-body relation, mental representation, and conscious awareness.

“What Is” Philosophy?
Philosophy 116
A survey of canonical philosophical texts that pose the question, “What is . . . ?” What type of knowledge do we anticipate or hope to receive when asking this question? What value do we attribute to such knowledge? This class serves as an introduction to philosophical thinking through these questions and the important philosophical ideas to which they give rise, such as the concept of essence, the nature and ends of knowledge, and the systems by which values are created.

Introduction to Political Philosophy
Philosophy 117 / Political Studies 117
See Political Studies 117 for course description.

Human Nature
Philosophy 118
cross-listed: human rights, sts
An ancient tradition claims that we have a detailed set of inborn capabilities and limitations, rich in implications for how we live our lives and organize society. An opposing tradition emphasizes plasticity and indeterminacy. If there is a human nature, what is it, who can speak with authority about it, and what implications does it have for changing what we are? Readings from philosophy, psychology, evolutionary biology, and other fields.

Introduction to Philosophy of Science
Philosophy 120
cross-listed: sts
This course takes a thematic approach to examine the nature and limits of science and scientific reasoning. Topics include the demarcation problem (what distinguishes scientific theories from putatively nonscientific theories such as astrology and creationism?); the riddles of induction (what reason is there to think the future will resemble the past?); and the realism/antirealism debate (does science tell us what the world is really like?).

History of Philosophy I
Philosophy 203
This course closely examines selected texts in the history of philosophy, emphasizing historical connections and developments through the centuries from ancient Greece to 18th-century Britain. Authors include Plato (Republic), Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics), Epictetus, Augustine (Confessions), Aquinas, Descartes (Meditations), Spinoza, Locke (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, selections), Berkeley (Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous), and Hume. Issues include the philosophy of knowledge, art, education, society, ethics, religion, reason, perception, and, centrally, philosophical methodology.

Ethical Life in Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy
Philosophy 2038 / Literature 2038
See Literature 2038 for a course description.

History of Philosophy II 
Philosophy 2044
A close examination of selected texts in the history of philosophy, emphasizing historical connections and developments from the 18th century to the 20th. Authors studied: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Russell, William James, and Wittgenstein. The class keeps questions of philosophical methodology in mind as it proceeds through issues in ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of perception, and philosophy of language. Prerequisite: Philosophy 20.

Medieval Philosophy
Philosophy 207
cross-listed: medieval studies
Are faith and reason essentially antagonistic, or might they require one another for their mutual perfection? What, then, are the powers and limits of faith and reason, both independently and in relation to one another? These questions were central to the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosopher-theologians on whose work this course concentrates: Moses Maimonides, St. Thomas Aquinas, Abu Nasr al-Farabi, and Avicenna.

19th-Century Continental Philosophy
Philosophy 213
cross-listed: german studies
Readings from Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. The focus is on how these writers explored such themes as the nature of consciousness, reality, value, and community; on their distinctive styles of authorship; and on their conceptions of the nature and role of philosophy.

The Critical Turn: Aesthetics after Kant
Philosophy 231 
An examination of major contributions to philosophical aesthetics, beginning with Kant’s Critique of Judgment, which transformed 18th-century debates about beauty, taste, and art and continues to inform accounts of criticism and the arts today. Particular attention is given to discussions of the standard of beauty, progress in the arts, art’s relationship to truth, art and the theatrical, and the antagonism of art and convention. Readings include works by Hume, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Benjamin, Greenberg, Fried, and Cavell. 

Philosophy and Film
Philosophy 235
Are the claims conveyed by film medium-bound? Can the philosophical, ethical, or political content of a film be detached from its specifically filmic expression? To explore these and other questions, this course integrates readings of Benjamin, Adorno, Beckett, Cavell, and Danto with viewings of films by Eisenstein, Marker, Fellini, and others. 

Symbolic Logic
Philosophy 237
cross-listed: mbb
This course reviews several symbolic systems in order to formally test the validity of deductive arguments expressed in ordinary language of various levels of complexity. Beginning with the common notion of a valid argument, the course progresses through such topics as truth tables, Aristotelian logic, Venn diagrams, and general quantification theory, including identity. It ends with a discussion of the extension of such work into higher orders of logic and the foundations of mathematics, and the initial surprise of Gödel’s incompleteness proof.

Relativism 
Philosophy 242
This course explores relativism as a philosophical position. The first half of the semester focuses on epistemic relativism and the second half on moral/cultural relativism. The class introduces several fundamental modes of philosophical inquiry, among them, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and metaethics. Authors read include Richard Rorty, W. V. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Bernard Williams, and Peter Winch. A prior course in philosophy is desirable but not necessary.

Epistemology
Philosophy 244
Do you know anything and, if so, what do you know? What does it mean to know something? Is knowing something different from believing it, thinking it, or being sure of it? This course examines these questions, and questions like them, and studies the answers philosophers give to them. Readings are drawn from the works of Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Plato, Descartes, Moore, Unger, Gettier, Goldman, Quine, and others.

Hume and Philosophy of Science
Philosophy 248
This course examines Hume’s empiricist challenge to received understandings of causality, induction, the systematic unity of nature, and the self. It brings Hume into dialogue with the Logical Positivists, and explores the Humean elements of relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and contemporary neuroscience, along with his influence on key figures in the philosophy of science. Finally, it asks whether contemporary philosophy of science has successfully responded to Hume’s empiricist challenge. 

Ethical Theory
Philosophy 251
What is the moral dimension of our life, and what constitutes its key elements? Are there such things as “happiness,” “virtue,” and “wisdom”? Do we have “rights” and “duties” and, if so, how do we recognize them? This course ­critically examines the primary texts of four philosophers whose writings on these fun­damental questions have had a permanent ­influence on Western thought: Aristotle, Epictetus, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill.

American Philosophy and Education
Philosophy 252
While American education has been influenced greatly by philosophy, it is, largely, a neglected area of study for many students and aspiring teachers. This course introduces students to philosophical texts central to the development of education in America, and to American philosophers who examine conceptual issues of concern in teaching and learning today. Students emerge with a foundational understanding of the intersection that exists between education and democracy, the nature of educational experience, and how teaching as an art and as a ­science is understood.

Around Merleau-Ponty: Language and Vision
Philosophy 253
While American education has been influenced greatly by philosophy, it is, largely, a neglected area of study for many students and aspiring teachers. This course introduces students to philosophical texts central to the development of education in America, and to American philosophers who examine conceptual issues of concern in teaching and learning today. Students emerge with a foundational understanding of the intersection that exists between education and democracy, the nature of educational experience, and how teaching as an art and as a ­science is understood.

Medical Ethics
Philosophy 255
cross-listed: gis, human rights, sts
This course examines a range of topics in contemporary debates over medical ethics, among them issues of genetics, reproduction, death and dying, and involuntary psychiatric hospitalization and treatment. Students review competing ethical positions that philosophers have proposed as models for understanding and resolving issues of medical ethics and study basic concepts with which all such theories grapple. Also examined are the ways these concepts apply to actual cases, and the conflict between ethical reasoning and social, religious, and legal concerns.

Aristotle and the Experience of Nature
Philosophy 262
cross-listed: sts
Contrary to modern mechanicist theories of nature, Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics testify to an experience of nature as that which exceeds and encompasses the human and is in some sense divine. By turning back to ancient experiences, this course seeks to unsettle some of modernity’s most entrenched assumptions about nature, value, divinity, knowing, the relation between theory and practice, and indeed the meaning of “life.” Readings are drawn from Aristotle’s works as well as Plato’s Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus, and Timaeus.

Philosophy of Race
Philosophy 263
cross-listed: human rights
The major tasks of a philosophy of race include: identifying and accounting for historically and geographically diverse histories of racialization; clarifying the forms and normative significance of the injuries of invidious racialization; acknowledging the motivations for and evaluating the efficacy of critical reappropriations of racial identity; and orienting resistance to ongoing forms of racialized injustice. This course addresses the question, “Is the normative purview of liberalism adequate to these tasks?”

Contemporary Feminist Philosophy
Philosophy 264
cross-listed: gss
This course examines how the various philosophical resources that feminist philosophers draw upon—Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Rawls, Kant, Arendt, Freud, Lacan—influence their articulations of the tasks, strategies, and goals of feminist philosophy and politics. This accomplished, it then presents a multiparty dialogue among several contemporary feminist philosophers about the tasks and future of feminism.

The Unconscious
Philosophy 265
cross-listed: mbb
In the 17th century, consciousness was the reigning mark of the mental phenomenon. Since the emergence of cognitive psychology in the mid–20th century, however, there has been an explosion of research into unconscious mental life. In a striking reversal, so much of our mental life is now relegated to the domain of the unconscious that consciousness has come to seem the greater mystery. This course examines debates concerning the nature and existence of unconscious mental phenomena over the past 350 years.

Spinoza and the Political
Philosophy 270
cross-listed: jewish studies
This course provides a comprehensive introduction to the major currents of Spinoza’s philosophy and examines the work of those who claim to philosophize in its wake (primarily, Gilles Deleuze and Antonio Negri). Students read Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus and his Ethics, and consider the consequences of the distinction between true and false (i.e., “seeming”) contradictions in Spinoza’s philosophy. Some topics include Spinoza’s critiques of abstraction and stasis; the value of free thought and speech; and the relative powers of reason and passion.

Topics in the Philosophy of Language
Philosophy 271
cross-listed: mbb
This course reviews Saul Kripke’s ground-breaking lecture series, Naming and Necessity, given at Princeton University in 1970. For background, students read essays by Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, John Searle, and others. Readings may also include some of the recent literature on Naming and Necessity. Prerequisites: one prior course in philosophy (preferably Philosophy 237, Symbolic Logic) and permission of the instructor.

The Philosophy of William James
Philosophy 281
William James (1842–1910) wrote and lectured on philosophy for both the emerging “profession” and for lay persons, and he did so with unusual style and clarity. In his lifetime, he earned an international reputation and became the most widely known philosopher in America. Readings include selections from James’s works, and among the topics covered are religious experience, the subject matter and nature of psychology, various ethical issues, and the pragmatic theory of truth. Prerequisites: permission of the instructor and at least sophomore status.

Philosophical Research Seminar
Philosophy 302
An intensive advanced seminar required of all philosophy majors in their junior year. A problem in contemporary philosophy is carefully selected, exactingly defined, and thoroughly researched; an essay or article is written addressing the problem, going through numerous revisions; the article is formally presented to the seminar, followed by discussion and debate; and the article in its completed form is submitted to an undergraduate or professional journal of philosophy, or to an undergraduate conference in philosophy. 

Existentialism
Philosophy 315
Existentialism is a philosophic, literary, artistic, and social movement that emerged during the Second World War in France, but with roots tracing back to Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century. This course provides a close study of selected writings of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, and Heidegger. It focuses on themes that are regarded as common existentialist preoccupations—such as rebellion against rationalism and the corresponding emphasis on subjectivity—and emphasizes important distinctions among these five writers. 

Is “Perpetual Peace” Sustainable?
Philosophy 334 / Human Rights 334
See Human Rights 334 for a course description..

Constitutional Law: Rights and Liberty
Philosophy 340
cross-listed: human rights, political studies
The U.S. Constitution is not only the charter of our political institutions but a statement of political philosophy as well. This course examines the theory and practical application of rights and liberties set forth in Amendments 1 through 10 (the Bill of Rights) and Amendment 14, guaranteeing due process and the equal protection of law to all. Most of the course readings are Supreme Court decisions, including dissenting opinions, through which students learn methods of judicial interpretation and aspects of legal reasoning.

Pragmatism
Philosophy 350
A detailed examination of the content and methods of a number of classic works of American philosophy, emphasizing issues in epistemology. Authors include Peirce, William James, Royce, Dewey, Santayana, Mead, and more recent writers. The philosophical movements discussed include transcendentalism, pragmatism, empiricism, and realism. The investigation of these works involves problems in the philosophy of religion, ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of education, and social and political philosophy.

Jean-Luc Nancy and Philosophy after Derrida
Philosophy 353
French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy rose to prominence as a follower of Jacques Derrida in the mid-1970s, often writing in collaboration with Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, most notably in a study of Jacques Lacan (Le titre de la lettre) and a study of German Romanticism (L’absolu littéraire). Students explore a range of Nancy’s writings in relation to those he draws upon, including the philosophers Hegel and Heidegger, maverick surrealist Georges Bataille, and novelist and critic Maurice Blanchot. Prerequisites: one philosophy course and consent of the instructor.

Law and Ethics
Philosophy 357
This Upper College seminar combines elements of two disciplines—law and philosophy—to examine the premises that support the ideal of a just society and the reasons utilized in making legal and moral arguments. The course is jointly taught by a faculty member of the Philosophy Program and a constitutional lawyer. Readings include current court ­decisions involving issues of equality, sexuality, the death penalty, and the right to die, and texts by philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Dworkin, and John Rawls.

The New Genetics: Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues
Philosophy 368
cross-listed: human rights, sts
An examination of a variety of ethical, legal, social, and scientific debates surrounding recent advances in genetics, especially technologies facilitated by the decoding of the human genome: genetic screening and testing, issues of justice (genetic discrimination and privacy issues), gene therapy, cloning, and transgenic agriculture (genetically modified crops). Prerequisites: previous courses in philosophy and/or biology.

The Philosophy of Kant
Philosophy 371
cross-listed: german studies
An introduction to one of the classic texts of Western philosophy, Kant’s magnum opus, The Critique of Pure Reason. Prerequisites: a previous course in philosophy and permission of the instructor.

Philosophy of Biology: Conceptual Foundations of Darwinian Theory
Philosophy 372
The lively, often acrimonious, debate between evolutionism and creationism continues, but we can achieve clarity on the terms of the debate only by understanding precisely what each position is committed to. In this course students examine the conceptual foundations of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Issues addressed include the ingredients for natural selection, the units and levels of selection, and the individuation of biological categories and kinds, among others. Prerequisite: one course in either philosophy or biology.

The Philosophy of Hegel
Philosophy 373
cross-listed: german studies
This course consists of readings from two of the four works Hegel saw to publication, The Phe­nome­nology of Spirit and The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, and from two of his four posthumously published lecture cycles, Lectures on the Philosophy of History and Lectures on Aesthetics.

The Philosophy of Husserl
Philosophy 382
Can philosophy become a rigorous science? If so, can it finally redeem its promise to provide a secure foundation for knowledge? Throughout the enormously ambitious itinerary of his writings, Edmund Husserl sought to demonstrate that both questions could be answered in the affirmative. Specifically, he sought to demonstrate that objectivity can be secured through the phenomenological exposition of subjectivity. For Husserl, constitutive subjectivity, when methodologically refined, allows what is to appear as it is: subjectivity and objectivity become as one.

The Philosophy of Heidegger
Philosophy 383
This course provides a close reading of major portions of Heidegger’s Being and Time and several short later works. It focuses on such themes as Heidegger’s (re)conception of the phenomenological method; the elusive search for an account of Being; the analysis of our “everyday” inauthentic being and our potentiality for authenticity; and Heidegger’s thoughts on art, language, and technology.

Politics and the Arts: Art, Philosophy, and Democratic Culture
Philosophy 390
cross-listed: art history
Plato banished poetry and the arts from his city, charging that they corrupted its citizens. How do we, citizens of a democratic republic in its third century, conceive the value and role of the arts in our democracy? Is art fundamental to our democratic culture, even essential to its continuation? This course explores topics from Emerson's hopes for American culture, to Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s, to contemporary critical writing on the arts, popular culture, and related matters. Prerequisites: one course in philosophy and permission of the instructor.

Philosophy and the Arts
Philosophy 393
This course explores the ways that philosophers (and philosophically engaged critics) have approached issues concerning the nature and value of art. After a discussion of Plato’s influential account of representation and the place of art in society, the class turns to questions raised by painting, photography, film, and music. From there, broader topics that cut across various art forms are considered. Readings include Hume and Kant on taste, Stanley Cavell on the moving image, and Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin on mass culture.